The approach of sociology is one of the remarkable and unique doctrines used today to understand the phenomena around us; the nature of humans is not to close their eyes to these phenomena, including religion. Hence this paper attempts to describe the issue of Sufism from outside the lens of Islamic Sharia and bring it through in the sociology of religion perspective, because the approach of sociology of religion is a supportive doctrine to explain Sufism as human phenomena and rescue it from the boundaries of religion, in this aspect the role of individual, groups, society culture, norms play the vital role in shaping, introducing Islamic mysticism generally and Kurdish Sufism / Islam especially. In this sense, this study examines Sufism from a human perspective; it is an inner practice aimed at understanding divinity and establishing a direct relationship with God beyond the limitations and boundaries of Sharia. Meanwhile, all Salafists and Islamists assert that Muslims should base their rituals strictly on the requirements of Sharia. This interpretation (taqlid) narrows the scope of Islam and closes off broader human perspectives on religion, including Sufism, philosophy, and Islamic cultural or traditional practices. Hence, this paper argues that the misunderstanding of Islam originates primarily from the Salafist and Islamist perspectives. These groups rely on an abstract interpretation of Sharia, whereas Sufism, in contrast, seeks to approach it through socialization. Sufism facilitates the integration of Sharia with social and individual values, norms, and even pre-Islamic beliefs. In this respect, this paper argues that imposing Sharia strongly in diverse Islamic societies leads society to violence, discrimination and extremism because each one of Islamic societies has its own culture, values and norms, which have been integrated with Islamic Sharia. In this respect, to justify this idea, I will argue this topic through Kurdish sufism/ Islam, which is different from other forms of Islamic belief because it is reshaped by Kurdish culture and values. Therefore, this study believes Islam is a cultural phenomenon and we can find it within Islamic Sufism, while Sufism has been placed in the main place in all kinds of Islamic societies except Saudi Arabia. To analyze it, this paper relies on the socio-critical paradigm on the one hand, and on the sociology of religion, which is based on people’s values and norms rather than metaphysics. On the other hand, I will debate on how Islam has been transformed into a solely religious phenomenon. To civilization, especially when Islam came to the peninsula and faced with alien beliefs. The areas covered in my explanation are cultural Sufism, Salafism, political Islamic ideology, and Kurdish Islam and Sufism.
Keywords: cultural Islam, Kurdish Islam, western scholars, values, political Islamic ideology, Salafism, Islamic philosophy, Kurdish Sufism.
Islamic Sufism, as one of the most controversial groups within Islam, has been a subject of debate and discussion, especially in the last three decades. It has also attracted attention in many fields. One of the reasons that has brought Sufism into academic fields and made it an intensive subject of study is the rise of terrorism and radicalism among Muslims in recent decades. Since then, Islamic radicals have been perceived as a new threat to the international community. Therefore, Sufism is being observed as a new transformation approach for diverse cultures and the promotion of a peaceful culture. Despite many studies on Islam by both Western and Eastern scholars, Islam is still presented as a unified religion. However, suppose we conduct deeper research and engage closely with Muslim traditions and people to discover what is actually happening in Muslim societies. In that case, we will realize that Islam is not a unified religion. Alongside Islam, there is also Sufism in Islamic societies, and each society has its own form of Sufism and its own form of Islam, different from others.
Presenting and introducing Islam in the unified package has created a huge misunderstanding on hand and left Islam under the control of Muslim claimants and preachers/mullahs on the other hand. Meanwhile, religion and Sufism are also social phenomena that operate within society and adapt to its norms and values. To understand this category of analysis, we need to study Sufism in the social sciences, especially through the sociology of religion. This approach will attempt to place the role of religion on individuals and vice versa. Hence, I will try to bring Islam through in re-socialization to facilitate understanding of Sufism and its vital role in enhancing peace in a diverse society. For instance, if we analyze Islam in several countries, we will see that Islam has many forms that each has its distinct views on issues such as worship, spirituality, tolerance, women’s rights, secularism, and democracy. This takes me to the same question that ‘ is Europe religiously different, if so, why’ (Berger, P. L., 2001, 443). Now, let’s change this question: Is the Islamic world religiously different? If so, why?
Therefore, understanding Sufism as a human phenomenon helps to reveal what is happening in Muslim societies on one hand, and to expose the mistakes that were made by some Western scholars in the past on Islam on the other hand, when they fail to recognize the significant role of Sufism in transforming violent cultures into cultures of peace in many Islamic societies. In chapter one, I will first define Islam as a historical event that occurred in the fifth century in a part of the Arabian Peninsula. Then I will discuss the time when Islam expanded outside the Peninsula and encountered other cultures and civilizations. For example, in 636, Islam encountered mysticism, Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Manichaeism, and paganism in ancient Persia and Kurdistan, where a rich and diverse intellectual tradition flourished. (Stephen Schwartz, 2002-2003).
In this respect, this research intends to discover “Kurdish Islam/Sufism as an approach that attempts to analyze and introduce Islam as a social phenomenon. Hence, this study presents Kurdish Sufism through the lens of cultural Islam, as Kurdish Sufism has evolved into a distinct form of Kurdish Islam. Kurdish people have expressed Islamic values and rituals through mysticism. In this paradigm, Sufism is based on culture, values, and norms in a private society, not on interpretation as Salafis and Islamists call. Moreover, the scholarship of sociology and the philosophy of religion supports the role of culture in shaping belief and religion.
In the same chapter, I will also debate a new form of piety that emerged in Islam: mysticism. Then, how did Islamic philosophy, as one of the most outstanding and flourishing thought systems, originate within Islam and force it to open more than in the past?
In chapter two, I will discuss political Islamic ideology and Salafism as two groups that claim Islam as a unified religion, and they also oppose cultural Islam, Sufism, including Kurdish Islam and other forms of Islam, which present Islam as a single package and whose explanations are limited to political Islamic ideology and Salafism. Therefore, they could not see the diversity and plurality of Islam that still exist within the religion. In the end, I will write the conclusions and bibliography.
Sociology is one of the unique approaches that offer crucial analytical tools and methods for individuals, especially researchers, to observe phenomena in social life. It provides more than eye to grasp and uncover the sheets on the social behaviours and treatment. After the Second World War, new analyses emerged in schools and academic fields in the West, especially, which gave a new speech on the role of religion/ Christianity in society.’’ After World War II, a new branch of sociology (sociologie religieuse) developed in Western Europe and did so rather rapidly (Dobbelaere, K., 2000, p. 1).
Today, we witness a lot of confusion in people's minds; it is difficult to render an exact account of the situation and of religious life in particular. But those who have the mission to evangelize should know before they act; for this reason, consider the real situation with the help of social observation methods, which yield precise results. (Dobbelaere, K,2000,p.2).
In this sense sociology of religion brought Christianity under the hand of its self, the sociologists in west used data to understand religion for instance they concentrated on religious life not church, they gave more attention on ritual, norms, values, law, ethics, they intended to understand Christianity and its role by religion life not what does the church intend to tell us. Hence, the sociology of religion through religious life, they study values, norms, economy, demography, law, and culture.
In contrast to Christianity in the West, Islam remained under the hand of Mullhas, Islamic Ulama, / preachers. In this sense, the phenomena of Sufism are always covered by Islamic Sharia, and it is limited and far from all doctrines and approaches, including sociology. Hence, this topic relies on socio-critical theory and the sociology of religion, which are suitable for identifying the norms, values, and cultures of a society and how they establish, differentiate, and reshape Islam from other societies, as we see today in Kurdish Sufism. The sociology of religion also encourages freeing Sufism from the hands of mullahs and preachers and entrusting it to sociologists, who can examine how Sufism is grounded in people’s beliefs and values, even pre-beliefs, rather than interpretations. Moreover, socio-critical theory aims to define Sufism as a human phenomenon rather than a metaphysical subject. In this regard, humans redesign and reshape beliefs to accommodate a sect's integration into and adaptation to society.
Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion that emerged and developed in Mecca in 610, at the beginning of the seventh century, under the leadership of Muhammad. Islam remained in the Arabian Peninsula until Muhammad’s death. After the death of the Prophet Muhammad, a new term emerged in Islam: the Rashidun Caliphate. Under the Rashidun Caliphate, Islam began to expand its power outside the Peninsula. Thus, Islam moved to Iraq and fought against the Sassanid Empire. It also moved to Syria and fought against the Roman Empire. Moving out of the Arabian Peninsula was one of the most glorious periods in Islamic history because it radically transformed Islam from a closed to an open religion, from a poor to a rich one.
That movement enriched Islam with philosophy, mysticism, and other cultures distinct from those of the Peninsula. Therefore, when they entered Islam, they established themselves within it. In that way, they created a Cultural Islam, including Kurdish Islam.
In this regard, Islamic scholar Stephen Schwartz states that “The large populations that came under Muslim domination from Persia through Central Asia. Some of these were Zoroastrian, some were involved in Gnostic cults or Asiatic Christianity (Nestorians), some were Buddhist, and some followed shamans. The dervishes provided their greatest service to Muslim rulers as agents of goodwill between adherents of the ruling faith and those of the ruled. But this syncretism has always been suspected by Islamic fundamentalists” (Stephen Schwartz, 2002-2003, p.33).
when Islam moved to Syria and Iraq, this period is marked of appearing mysticism/Sufism inside Islam, As Fazlur Rahman mentioned ‘’For the first two centuries Sufism remained a spontaneous individual phenomenon but, with the development of the formal disciplines of Islamic law and theology, and the gradual emergence, with them, of the class of ‘Ulama’, it rapidly developed into an institution with a tremendous mass appeal” (Rahman, F,2020,p.102).
From an individual, inner experience to a movement, Sufism attracted followers. Hence, many people gathered around it and pledged loyalty to the Sufi clerics. The beloved preachers (clerics), also known as storytellers, were influential people who could sway society and masses by relying on Qur’anic stories on one hand, and by enriching themselves by borrowing and bringing inner powers from other religions, such as Gnosticism, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism on the other hand. ( لەشکری†،†٢٠١٢†،†)
Each one of these religions and beliefs left a profound impact on Islam and Muslims, too. Sometimes, the beliefs of Sufi masters and clerics faced brutality and extreme measures, because they were not accepted by the orthodox and mullahs/imams. For example, the execution of al-Halaaj in Baghdad (911) because of hlool and the killing of al-Suhrawardi in Syria. Therefore, mysticism was sometimes and in some places considered infidelity or even paganism.
Overall, mysticism could be considered one of the outstanding religious beliefs in Islam; it was close to Zoroastrian, Mithraic, Mazdakite, and Manichaean beliefs. For example, Sheikh Shahabadin Suhrawardi, a Kurdish Sufi, presented his Sufi movement under the name of illumination; meanwhile, many scholars believed that illumination was a Mithraic thought that influenced Islamic religious thought for many years and remains alive today. Illumination became the main source for many Sufi movements in Islamic history. ( حیجازی،†٢٠١٢†،†) Suhrwardi’s century—the half of the 11th century—was not a typical one for Islam. There were many forms of religion, including Islam, which debated God’s nature, logic and religion, prophecy, and the confrontation between Mu’tazilites and Hanbalites, which had begun in the early centuries and continued to influence the eleventh century. In this regard, all these ideas and beliefs influenced Islam, radically changing it and leading to its development into a civilization, transforming it into a human phenomenon that can be critically examined and observed through the lens of social science. شێخ†موحەمەد،†٢٠٢٣†©†)
Under this light, Sufism became a new independent movement and organization within Islam and Sharia. Sufis added another law and ritual to Islam. For instance, in Sufism, every Muslim needs a Sheikh (cleric) to get closer to God. Every Sufi needs a Sufi master (sheikh) like a mediator. Having a sheikh is one of the main principles of Sufism. The sheikh is seen as a bridge between God and the Sufi, and even as an intercessor for the Sufi on the last day. Meanwhile, Islamic Sharia/law refused mediation totally. Sufism also added some rituals to its Islam, such as dancing and singing. Meanwhile, both political Islamic ideologies and Salafists denied these rituals extremely and saw them as renovation/bid (Weismann, I. (2009). Political Islamic ideologies and Salafists claim thatƆWhen Islam was in the Peninsula, the only ritual that was accepted was prayer in the mosques.
The philosophy of Islam, as a system for thinking and understanding metaphysics, life, being, and morality, did not exist or appear in the Peninsula when Islam was born, and there was no evidence to support this. ( حسێن،†٢٠١٩†)
When Islam conquered Syria and Iraq, it faced both the Sassanid and Byzantine civilizations. When the capital of the Islamic Caliphate moved from Medina to Damascus under the Umayyad dynasty (660–750), the Muslim rulers were surrounded by an alien culture. This process posed questions for Islam, such as how Islam should engage with and respond to these civilizations, what attitude Islam should adopt towards these traditions and beliefs, how much it should integrate with them, and how much it should reject them. (Reilly, R. R. 2014).
At that time, Greek philosophy was banned throughout the Roman Empire, including the Byzantine capital. Still, in the eastern capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, Greek philosophical texts were translated into Syriac. Then, during the caliphate of al-Ma’mun, in the Islamic Abbasid caliphate, many Greek philosophical texts were translated into Arabic. The Abbasid caliphate led Islam to its golden age. Islam during the Abbasid caliphate opened itself toward Greek, Indian and later Roman thought. All of them helped Islam to undergo reformation. During that era, the most prominent rational group, the Mu’tazilites, emerged. Enrique Dussel says that “the Aristotelian logic was studied by Arab people in Baghdad.” (Dussel, Krauel, & Tuma, 2000). The Mu’tazillites presented new ideas that were seen as revolutionary within Islam and faced Islamic sharia / orthodox like the Hanbali.
One of the controversial debates presented by the Mu’tazilites was free will versus fate. In the pre-Mu’tazilite period, Islamic thought was based on fate, meaning that humans did not have the freedom to choose what to do in life, as their lives were predetermined by God. The Mu’tazilites criticized this notion, calling it illogical. It contradicted human freedom and implied God’s absolute determination of human destiny. The Mu’tazilites argued that without human freedom, God’s justice was incomprehensible.
The Mu’tazilites also paid more attention to reason. They valued the role of reason to analyze subjects and concepts. They thought that, for this reason, we would be able to understand morality, justice, and goodness. Only by using reason can we find out God’s justice. That is why human free will is the main principle for the Mu’tazilites to use reason. “At a very basic Socratic and Aristotelian level, they embraced the propositions that the mind can know things, as distinct from having opinions about them.” (Reilly(2014).
According to the Mu’tazilites, God does not act against his truth and justice. For the Mu’tazilites, God is subject to his justice, and he cannot act outside of it. He cannot be corrupt. The Mu’tazilites were the only theological school to use the term' obligation' (wajib) in reference to God. Neo-Mu’tazilite Harun Nasution (1919–1998) stated that “because He is completely perfect, God cannot do that which is not good.” Hence, the Mu’tazilites went further and said that the concept of unity (tawhid) as an essential doctrine for Islam is contradictory to the notion that the orthodox claim that God is an aggressive and honest power at the same time. The orthodox claim to possess the qualities and attributes of God. Under this light, they claim that God has ninety-nine names. But the Mu’tazilites say that this idea is the opposite of monotheism. In this respect, the Mu’tazilites asked, “If God is one, how could he have this number of attributes that somehow coexist separately with him?” (Reilly,2014). In this respect, the rise of philosophy within Islam challenged Islamic orthodoxy and brought Islam into the realm of social science. It opened the door for scholars to advance new arguments about Islam, grounded in concepts such as freedom, eternity, and destiny. All of these developments made religion accessible as a social phenomenon on the one hand and, on the other, helped transform Islam toward peace-oriented education.
After the emergence of mysticism and Islamic philosophy, the third and most remarkable fundamental change in Islam occurred. It could be called cultural Islam. If we try to find a new definition of cultural Islam, it could be understood as a form of Islam grounded in people’s culture, norms, values, and traditions rather than in interpretation.
Above all, Kurdistan had its own rich culture, including music, clothing, language, and values. As the German philosopher Herder called it, ßßthe spirit of the nation. From this perspective, we can understand that every nation has its own spirit, distinct from others'. Maintaining and preserving that spirit depends on how the nation works and resists protecting itself from aggression on one hand, and how rich that spirit is on the other hand. In this regard, Kurdistan was not easy for Islam to conquer culturally, as it had difficult terrain, many mountains, and rich agriculture. Because of that, the Kurds relied on themselves to survive. They did not enter the process of urbanization, which is one of the ways that facilitates assimilation. As Ernest Gellner explained in his theory of nationalism, according to him, nationalism is a new form of socialization that emerged after modernism., which is based on the standardization of language and the transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society Therefore, Gellner thinks that to create nationalism, every group of people should move and change from agriculture to industrialization/urbanization society. (O'Leary. 1997).
Therefore, Kurds remained rural and did not build cities or undergo urbanization. According to Gllenar, modernization has ended the culture of tribalism or rural exhibition through the urbanization process. Consequently, the standardization of language and nation started. In contrast to modern society, the Kurds still have a stronger connection to their rituals and traditions than other people do. As Fareed Zakaria says, "Islam, like any religion, is not what books make it but what people make it" (Zakaria, F. 2007, p 78). In this respect, Kurdish Islam is another kind of Islam as Kurdish people are strongly working to preserve their traditions and cultures. They are not yet ready to enter the process of urbanization, as Gllenar portrayed.
Because Islam brought new norms, traditions, and values, and Kurds also had their different norms, values, and traditions. After many struggles and conflicts, Kurds accepted Islam, but they incorporated their ideas, values, and norms into Islam. Eventually, they created a new form of Islam that integrated with their values. For instance, in the early 8th century, Kurds embraced Sufism. Kurdish Sufism is a blend of Islamic and Zagrosian mysticism, based on Mithraism, the ancient Kurdish religion (or pre-Islamic Kurdish religion), dating back to 2000 bc. Kurdish Sufism became an umbrella for preserving Kurdish culture, allowing them to maintain their traditions. For example, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the orientalists travelled to Kurdistan, they said that Kurdish Islam was not like Arab Islam. For instance, Claudius Rich in his book, mentioned and clarified the role and influence of Kurdish women in Kurdish society during the eighteenth century, when he said ’’women in the Jaf a Kurdish tribe lacked the slightest pretension to a veil, nor had they even a handkerchief round the lower part of the face like Arab women.” They did not even attempt to “hide themselves” from foreigners, and there “were as many women as men. Rich,1836, p.181).
The political Islamic and extremist Islamic ideologies, such as Salafis, Muslim Brotherhood, and other forms of political Islamic ideologies and jihadists, these groups take the role of culture to shape religion; they separate religion from culture, and they also deny Sufism, while every culture puts its values and norms in religion, as I have recently explained in the first chapter. For instance, Islam in Egypt is different from Islam in Pakistan; Islam in Saudi Arabia is different from Islam in Kurdistan.
Islam in Saudi Arabia is inspired by Salafism and Wahhabism, which are strict and closed Islamic ideologies that were created in the eighteenth century by Mohammad Abdul Al Wahhab. Abdul Al Wahhab promoted his ideology and movement by drawing on Bedouin Arab culture in Najd. The ideology of Arab Bedouin in Najd, where Muhammad Abdul Wahhab grew up, was a closed and extremist culture that hated art, music, and any ritual that came from other nations and groups outside Najd within Islam. Wahhabism also hates other groups and movements of religion that live outside and inside Islam, such as Sufism and Shia.
Also, the Muslim Brotherhood, as an extremist Islamist group, was founded by Hassan al-Banna in Egypt. Both Wahhabis and the Muslim Brotherhood have been working hard to justify their ideology in all Muslim societies on one hand and remove all norms and values which are embedded in Islam by different Muslim societies on the other hand. They claim that Islam is a united religion, and they stand against any rituals that come into Islam from another culture or people, including Sufism. They claim the purity of Islam to achieve that; they justify one form of Islam and impose it in all Islamic countries, from Africa to East Asia and Europe.
The French sociologist Oliver Roy defined and displayed this form as "holy ignorance," where religion and culture part ways. Oliver Roy warns and presents the threat of an Islamic fundamentalist form as a religion that is separated from culture. Today, this form of religion imposes a profound threat to cultural Islam (Roy,2014).
This form of religion attempts to erase all norms and values that are still alive in the religion. For example, Said Qutub did not consider Islamic societies to be Muslim. He said that they are not true Islam and not pure Islam. Hence, he asked that they should be radically changed to Islam, through the process of re-Islamization, and the only way to achieve their glory and the golden age is to return to pure Islam. ( Qutb, 2019).
In this regard, some Western and Eastern scholars can’t go deeply and profoundly into Muslim societies to see the differences between different Muslims. As the Palestinian author Edward Said mentioned, there is no true Islam, and he also points out that Islam has diverse meanings for different people. He says, “Within my own family, hugely different kinds of Islam are practiced” (Said 1997). Said maintained and stated that in practice, there is no “true Islam”; there are only Muslims, as many as there are individual Muslims. Moreover, differences among Muslims can be vast. (Bar, 2004).
Although religion has a metaphysical root, it cannot remain in the abstract; it enters society and confronts individual norms and values. These norms and values force and encourage religion to change radically from its original form. Therefore, socio-critical theory not only helps to understand and criticize Islam as an untied religion, but it also proposes an alternative to it: the alternative is Cultural Islam, instead of united Islam or true Islam. I supported my argument with the example of Kurdish Islam as a unique and distinct form of Cultural Islam. Hence, Cultural Islam could be used as a scholarship and approach to examine the differences that are still alive in Muslim societies, and it could also be explained by the socio-critical and sociology of religion paradigms; it’s impossible to find in Sharia.
Living, observing, and researching Muslim daily life is the best way to understand the diversity of Muslim societies. It provides a clear and true picture, closer to Islam. This way could also be an important tool to deal with Islam, hence the lack of knowledge and direct contact with different Muslim people and societies. However, if you have lived in a place where Islam is common, you have probably observed some of this diversity and may even take it for granted.
However, some Western and Eastern scholars cannot see the differences which have existed for many thousands of years inside Muslim societies. They are too lazy to search for what is happening in reality in Muslim societies. These scholars depend on Islamic ideology to prove their explanation; they take Islam as one package and one religion, but Islam is not a united religion. There are many types of Islam, and each has its own views on religion, human rights, gender equality, democracy, and diverse cultures, such as Sunni, Shia, Salafism, Sufism, and Islamic political ideology. Every nation has its own form of Islam, distinct from others'. For example, Kurdish Islam is different from Saudi Islam. Saudi Islam is inspired by Islamic ideology and Salafism, but Kurdish Islam is inspired by Sufism.
The majority of Kurds are Muslim, but this kind of Islam is shaped and enriched by their beliefs, norms, and values; these beliefs came into Islam and obligated Islam to integrate with them. Kurdish Islam has traditions, values, and norms that are different from other forms of Islam. It would be better called Kurdish Islam/ Kurdish Sufism, which is rejected by political Islamic ideology and Islamic fundamentalist groups. Because these groups believe that Islam is a united religion, Islam has sharia/ law, and this law should be applied to all Muslims from everywhere, and all Muslims must obey it. They work to present a single form of clothing, worship, and style for all Muslims across Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. Those groups claim that Muslim countries are not pure Muslims; they claim that they should go through an Islamicization process, and it will be fulfilled through removing diverse cultures in Islam.
Hiwa Raheem is a PhD student at the UNESCO chair of Philosophy of Peace, Conflict and Development Studies, University of Jaume I, Castellon, Spain. Contact: hiwamusa46@gmail.com